You Are a Tourist
by KaleidoscopeOfWords
Summary: Maybe it was summer that she missed, or maybe it was just the people. KataraZuko drabble series.
1. Weeping Willow

**You Are a Tourist**

_A Zuko and Katara Drabble Series_

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**Weeping Willow**

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"He's finally asleep." Her lips moved, but her words came out unattached, in bits and pieces; the flap of the tent closed behind her in a slight gust of air. "I can't bear to see him –"

And her voice caught, tears gathering at the edges of her eyes. He took her hand awkwardly, unsure of his gestures; comforting was not his specialty. But it didn't seem to matter to her as she held on tight anyway.

They came to a small green patch of life by a towering tree where they decided to sit. Zuko settled first and sat against the tree. Katara sprawled a few inches away, taking her hand back from him and spreading them wide into the foliage. She lay with her stomach on the ground, her nightgown a canvas for her dark hair to spill over.

"It's odd," Zuko said after a few moments of Katara combing the green ground. "In the Fire Nation, nothing is green."

And she laughed, brilliant and beautiful and forced, laughed and soon tears were coming down her cheeks and dotting her nightgown with dark gray patches. And she sat up with something in her hand, closed tight between two fingers, and wrapped her arms around his neck without warning and cried.

"Nothing is green where I come from either," she whispered quietly, in between sobs. "It's all ice."

And he realized the irony, green meaning life, and how their nations were such a contradictory to that. He shifted his arms to lock them around her until she had cried herself to sleep. He picked her up to carry her back to camp, and not until he laid her down on her blankets did he see what was clasped in her fingers.

It was a four-leaf clover, the richest green with smooth edges and leaves all the same size.

He didn't know why he did it, but he slid it out of her fingers and pocketed it.

He almost got away too – but then her eyes opened, bleary and red from crying.

"Don't leave," she mumbled, her hand closing on his before she drifted back to sleep. He lay down next to her and rolled to his back, thinking.

He was afraid that she would be like this forever, broken and crying. But he thought of how the war would be decided after tomorrow, or maybe it would take a few weeks, but after that, he decided he would take her somewhere nice where she could stay awhile. Somewhere without people, with a nice house, a pond or maybe a waterfall…

Somewhere green.

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**xx Definitely excited for this. I've wanted to start one forever, but with all my other drabbles.. Ah, I just said what the heck. **


	2. Crawling Towards the Sun

**Crawling Towards the Sun**

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She touched her lips and wondered.

What would summer feel like this year?

Around her the crisp white tundra glared back at her, intimidating and unchangeable. It taunted her, stirred the memories within her that had been buried with other thoughts, such as that of summer and sun that actually reached down and touched her skin instead of hovering, there to see but not to feel.

The fur around her neck and face tickled her skin, and she tugged her hood down, fiddling with the neckpiece until it dropped off. There she waited, the sun mocking her, and she willed herself to feel anything but numb.

She closed her eyes.

And suddenly she was back.

Aang was laughing, tumbling around the grassy valley beneath the tree-topped mountain, Momo at his feet. The stream's ever-constant rush joined the ruckus, a backbeat to the bickering that was occurring between Sokka and Toph. And then, like her at the moment, there was Zuko a bit back from the rest, observing.

She carefully watched him, all set jaw and tense shoulders. But there had been something about him that made her flush, made her warm in her cheeks in a way that the sun couldn't.

And her eyes opened again. Maybe it was summer she missed, or maybe it was just the people. Or Zuko. Or maybe both.

She stood there, tracing the white with her eyes. But too soon she got lost, unsure of where the white stopped and started. She slipped and wished for the sun. Wished she hadn't come back.

"Katara, your students are asking for you."

Turning around, she found Suki watching her expectantly, all protruding belly and bright eyes. While Katara felt awkward and lacking in her new home, she was perplexed at how at home and beautifully Suki had adapted.

She had asked her once.

The answer had been that it was where Sokka needed to be and therefore it was a part of him. She loved him so she loved the Pole too. The barren, monochromatic, blinding, isolated, cold –

"Tell them I'm coming. I just…"

She faltered, trying to pull her eyes away from the stare she had set on the horizon but couldn't. It didn't matter, though. Suki usually saw her at her worst when she slipped back in and out of her blankets, trying to find a way out. But she couldn't because it was too cold; at night she could never venture out on a walk to clear her thoughts, or she'd be cleared all together.

"Sokka can see it too," Suki revealed finally, her eyes accepting the fact that Katara was struggling. She moved forward. "People say that before you left –"

"You don't understand," Katara cut in viciously, the affects of the icy land showing in her voice. "_I _don't even understand where I want to be. It's like this: I got out and saw the world, and now I feel like I'm not just this person who can live alone with her village and never see anyone else again. I'm bored. But I love these people, and if I left…"

"There would be people who could step up," Suki finished, not at all phased by the accusing note in Katara's voice. "Where would you go, anyway?"

And that was not answered with a threatening tone but silence. Katara looked away and felt the tears sting, but she refused to make this visible. Because this was the part she was unsure about, the part that kept her up at night dreaming, replaying and playing again these scenes that could mean anything or nothing.

She was not that type of girl before. She wasn't even that type now; not for anyone but him.

"I won't tell," Suki told her, sensing the intensity behind the quiet.

"I'd want to go to the Fire Nation," Katara finally said, the falter still present. "I feel like I have loose ends there. But if they don't turn out as planned, I'd like to go to the beaches."

There was a sense of understanding in the way Suki nodded, her hand coming to rest on her stomach. Her eyes started to disappear along the horizon too. But as soon as she willed it, they were back, sharp and calculating on Katara's face.

"I can't tell you if that's right or wrong," she said truthfully. "It's been a long time since… Well, I don't think you'd regret going in the least. All I know is that you aren't happy."

And Katara nodded, uncomfortable and rebuilding the wall that had cracked at her weak moment.

"I feel as if nothing makes sense anymore," she whispered quietly, observing the way she ached for those beaches she had spoken of moments ago.

"Then you need to go make some sense of some of it," Suki replied, her face screwing up as she held her back. "Ouch. He's a tough little one. You've got to promise me this though; don't leave until he's born. I don't trust anyone else with him."

Katara smiled, seeing the light in her brother's life, jealously burning behind her lips.

Heading back to the camp was hard as she watched the people around her, thinking of their cluelessness to where she would be in a few moon phases time.

But she was itching for the sun, for the warmth and the chatter of people, and maybe for him.

Just maybe.


End file.
